


From E With Love

by eloquated



Series: Holmes, Mycroft Holmes [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gadgets, Gen, General spy business
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27477310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated
Summary: Nobody ever said being a spy was easy.( Or, Why Sherlock Holmes should keep his hands to himself. )
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes
Series: Holmes, Mycroft Holmes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2007778
Comments: 9
Kudos: 21
Collections: Sherlock (BBC)





	From E With Love

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently spy!Mycroft is just as much fun as I'd hoped, so here's another installment! 
> 
> Because there's two now, I'm going to collect them into a series, so people can find them without searching through everything. I'll order it in something approaching chronological order, though they should all be able to stand on their own!

"Mr. Holmes, sir! Back from Istanbul already?"

The basement at Vauxhall Cross had housed the R&D department of the Secret Service for longer than Mycroft had been alive. It was a strange place, made of labyrinthine corridors and narrow doors with tiny (usually covered) windows. 

At any given time there were half a dozen people down here, working away at dismantling enemy technology, and cannibalising their designs into their own. It was a confusing space, but Mycroft knew the path to this specific part of the maze by heart.

Pushing open the door, he set his umbrella in the entry, and made sure the mangled remains of what had once been his wristwatch were carefully tucked away in his jacket pocket. 

"Haven't we agreed to dispense with the 'sir' formalities, E?"

Edison Allbright-- informally known as 'E' around Vauxhall Cross-- was precisely the sort of person that looked like he belonged in a lab. He was a mousy haired, nervous looking man, with round-framed glasses that seemed perpetually attempting to escape from the end of his nose. 

He was thin, and Mycroft supposed if they were standing beside each other, E would be half a head shorter, at least. 

"Long day up in the circus?" E guessed, and punctuated the smiling query by pushing his chair back from his cluttered desk. The tiny servos in the wheels hummed faintly, just at the edge of Mycroft's auditory range; though it had to be said that being just outside a rather large explosion two days before had left his hearing temporarily impaired.

"The longest, I'm afraid. Istanbul was a bad business, and the Circle wants an accounting for it."

"They're not trying to pin this on you, are they?" The corners of E's mouth pinched at the corners and turned down.

"Nothing like that, no. At least, not at the moment."

"Cup of tea?"

"Please, yes. I'd love one."

"So what are they going to do about it? Istanbul, I mean."

"I'm not certain. At the moment they're too busy looking under their beds for H.A.R.M agents, and pointing fingers at one another."

E snickered faintly to himself as he rolled over to the complicated collection of tubes and vials that he'd very loosely labelled a tea maker. As smart as he was, Mycroft had never learned how to use the thing, and he suspected that that was rather the point.

The techs down in R&D all had a strange sense of humour.

"Business as usual, then. Why don't you sit down? I won't be a minute."

"For the most part, unfortunately. They're sending me to Madrid at the end of the week. E--"

Mycroft paused a beat, fingers curling around the remains of his watch. He could feel the tiny, valiant tick of the second hand against the pad of his index finger, forever trapped in the instant he'd been thrown through the cathedral window.

"Don't worry about that, Mr. Holmes-"

"Mycroft."  
  
"Mycroft. I'll make sure you have whatever you need before you..." This time it was E's turn to pause, and Mycroft could see the moment his spectacled gaze fell on his bare wrist, and the other penny dropped.

"About that." Checking a sigh, Mycroft lifted his hand from his pocket and held out the twisted metal band, and the smashed front face, along with a handful of tiny gears. "It worked exceedingly well, but I'm afraid it wasn't quite up to a collision with the Istanbulian sidewalk."

Or the bullet. But he didn't see the point in mentioning that.

E took the mangled watch and delicately prodded the tip of his finger through what amounted to debris, and cast Mycroft a long suffering look over the top of his glasses. "This is the third watch you've broken in as many missions. I'm going to start wrapping them in rubber. Bright. Pink. Rubber."

Mycroft cocked an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. He didn't want to give him any added incentive to carry out his threat!

Shaking his head, and hiding a smile, E poured the watch bits into a dish on his desk, and rolled back to the mad-science-come-tea-maker to pour them both a cup, "I don't know how you do it. But you can make it up to me by field testing a new briefcase design I've been working on."

"What sort of a briefcase?"

"Well, the case itself isn't anything out of your standard issue; it's black, and bulletproof. But instead of delivering an electric charge when someone tries to open it-- you take it neat, don't you?"

Mycroft nodded and accepted the cup, before motioning him to continue.

"If anyone tampers with the locks, it'll release two needles loaded with a powerful sedative. It should keep them unconscious for twelve hours, at least. Long enough for you to secure them for questioning, in any case. And if they disarm that, the briefcase will explode when they try to open it."

"I do hope you're planning to give me the combination."

E grinned this time, half hidden by his own mug, "You don't like the idea of a mid-mission nap?"

"I can quite honestly say--"

_"Mr. Holmes? The Director would like a word with you upstairs."_

Patricia, officially titled secretary to the Director, though God knew what she actually was, called through the workshop door. 

"Blast, yes, alright, I'll be right up. Thank you."

"I suppose that's your cue." E raised his cup in mock salute, but his gaze fell on the umbrella Mycroft had propped by the door. It was bent in the middle, and the thin, plasticized fabric at the top was pock marked with burns and tiny holes. "What on Earth happened there? Istanbul again?"

Mycroft picked it up, and eyed the damage with a rueful chuckle, "Nothing so exciting, no. A close encounter with my little brother-- I meant to grab the other one this morning, it's still pouring rain."

E reached out for it, thumbing the scarred fabric and the skewed metal. Nothing special here, just a perfectly mundane high street shop umbrella. But the _potential_...

"Why don't you leave it with me for a few days? I'll see what I can do."

**.**

Everyone who knew Sherlock Holmes was knew that he was going to end up one of two things: 

Either an asset to the world, his prodigious intellect turned towards the greater good. 

Or a super villain. 

Of course, Mycroft had privately thought his brother would at least be finished high school before he started proving his detractors right. But Sherlock had always been precocious, and when Mycroft had heard about someone in Hartfield trying to get their hands on uranium?

Well, there had been no doubt that he was going to take an unexpected trip home to visit his parents. 

Honestly, they always meant well, but he didn't think they truly understood the chaos his little brother could cause. Even without weapons grade elements in his experiments.

They'd been thrilled to see him, and surprised enough that even his mother hadn't tried to make him feel too terribly guilty for his long silence. Work, he'd explained (as usual) had simply been too busy for him to find a spare moment.

They understood. They always understood. But Sherlock didn't look convinced.

"You lied to Mummy and Father." He declared later that night, installing his lanky, teenage frame across the end of his brother's bed. "You're not working in translations anymore, you don't have all the little dots of ink on your fingers."

Mycroft barely looked up from his book, but he raised his knees minutely to make a little more space for Sherlock by his feet. "Full marks. But I could be using a typewriter. Or maybe the government has issued better pens. Or--" 

This time he did look up, one corner of his mouth quirked, "I could be using a pencil. You're letting your old information cloud your current deductions, Sherlock; don't assume things haven't changed."

"You have bruises. And stitches on your upper arm, hidden under your sleeve-- but it's still sore, and you're favouring it slightly. You didn't get those from sitting at a desk in Whitehall. So what are you really doing, Mycroft?" Sherlock crossed his arms stubbornly, black curls falling into his eyes.

Fourteen had stripped away all of Sherlock's baby fat, and left him lean and gangly, with sharp features and even sharper eyes. Mycroft still didn't think they looked anything like blood relations, much less brothers with the same two parents.

"You're right, of course. I'm an agent working for Her Majesty's Secret Service, and I was injured on an assignment in Cairo, infiltrating a group of environmental saboteurs." With the rustle of pages, Mycroft closed his book around his silver bookmark, and set it on the bedside table. "Is that what you wanted to hear, brother mine?"

Sherlock bristled, the smooth tone plucking at his last annoyed nerve. "Don't be stupid, I know that isn't true! And if you're not going to tell me, I'll have to find out on my own!"

Before Mycroft could council patience (a lost cause with his little brother), or untangle himself from his bedsheets, Sherlock had bolted across the room and seized his briefcase. His fingers closed over the clasps, and for an instant Mycroft's heart stopped cold.

_The explosives. How stable at E made that locking mechanism!?_

"Sherlock, stop-!"

There was a faint mechanical click, and Sherlock had just less than a second to register the pain in his thumbs that shouldn't be there. There were just two little pricks, but briefcases weren't supposed to hurt at all.

And then the world simply dropped into blackness, and Mycroft made it to his side just in time to catch him.

"That wasn't very bright..." He sighed to the unconscious teenager, already snoring quietly against his shoulder, "You're lucky you didn't get blown sky high." 

He was a dead weight in his arms (poor choice of words), and his curls tickled the side of Mycroft's neck when he unconsciously tried to wrap himself around his big brother's warmth. "Oh Sherlock... Right, well, into bed with you."

In the morning, he'd have to come up with some kind of story to placate his brother. Something about falling asleep at the end of the bed, and dreaming the rest. It wasn't his best lie, but simple was better with Sherlock. The more details he added, the more inconsistencies he could deduce. The more flaws to poke his laser guided perception into. 

Half his colleagues at MI6 could learn a thing or two about observation from Sherlock, but Mycroft wasn't about to tell him that. It would just encourage him to cause more trouble.

But for now, he let Sherlock sleep off the sedative in his bed, while he rummaged carefully through his room for uranium, and his notes. 

And anything else that would get his brother in trouble with MI5. 

Honestly, they were going to have to keep a closer eye on him in the future.

**.**

"Twice in a week, this must be some kind of a record. I guess you're here for your umbrella? How was Sussex?"

Mycroft sank wearily into the spare chair pushed against the wall of the lab, and nodded, "I am, yes. And it was ... Eventful. Your briefcase works exceedingly well, by the way."

"Oh wonderful! You'll have to give me all the details!"

E pushed back from his desk with a proud grin, and held out an umbrella-- it was black, like his former one, but there the similarities ended. This one wasn't faded, or riddled with holes. It was sleek, polished, with a curved handle that looped comfortably over his arm.

"This doesn't look like my old umbrella." Mycroft mused, unfolding the canopy which opened much more easily with a bend in the shaft. It was lighter, too. Smoother. Just the sort of thing he would expect to come off E's work table. 

"I hope not! Have a little respect for my craft!"

"I have all the respect for your craft, it's kept me alive." Turning the umbrella, Mycroft smiled, and E looked vaguely mollified (though he suspected the offense against his professional artistry was mostly for show).

E pushed himself over, his hands moving animatedly as he pointed to the tiny row of buttons high on the umbrella's curved handle. 

"This is just a prototype, of course. But once I got to thinking about the shape of the umbrella, and the space for modifications, I thought of a dozen ways it could be utilized out in the field! Just consider the possibilities..."

  
  



End file.
